


Dudley Dursley and the Battle of Hogwarts

by circe (valhallawritings)



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Alternate Canon, Badass Dudley Dursley, Battle of Hogwarts, Canon Relationships, Canon Rewrite, Canon-Typical Violence, Dementors, Dialogue Heavy, Dudley Has A Gun, Dudley Has Issues, Gang Violence, Gen, Gun Violence, He's A Pretty Good Shot, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Nightmares, Panic Attacks, Potterwatch, Redeemed Draco Malfoy, Redeemed Dudley Dursley, Self-Esteem Issues, Vernon Dursley Being an Asshole
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-06-13
Updated: 2019-06-12
Packaged: 2020-05-02 10:52:12
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,326
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19197313
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/valhallawritings/pseuds/circe
Summary: Dudley Dursley has many regrets. He regrets his time as a bully, he regrets his laziness at school, and he regrets things he's never told anyone about.Most of all he regrets how he treated his cousin, Harry Potter.When Harry tells him about the War, Dudley feels a responsibility to fight.Harry assures Dudley he has nothing to prove to him.But Dudley has everything to prove to himself.





	Dudley Dursley and the Battle of Hogwarts

"…and that's why none of us can stay here."

Dudley Dursley stared at Harry Potter and tried to process the past two hours of confusion. There was a war Dudley wasn't apart of, but he was; a school that shouldn't exist, but it did; his cousin who should be dead, but he wasn't; a secret society that failed, but it hadn't; and a murderer who was defeated, but was back. Dudley had been introduced to prophecies, talking snakes, shapeshifters, resurrection, immortality, and a world that only existed as a taboo whisper suddenly deciding the fate of all living beings.

He was understandably overwhelmed.

"Okay, wow," said Dudley unhelpfully. His mouth was full of sand, and his head was full of cotton. Up until now, Dudley had been left alone and ignorant. He didn't know how he was supposed to respond to this.

Harry sat on a box full of Dudley's books and readjusted his glasses.

"Yeah. It's a lot to take in at once. Do you uh, have any questions?"

Harry bit the inside of his cheek with an expression Dudley thought was him realizing how dumb of a question that was. Dudley had been assaulted with life-changing information five times over. He stared blankly into space in a futile attempt to make sense of it all before snapping back to attention.

"I'll just ask one for now, or we'd be here all day."

Harry tipped his head in an understanding nod.

"Those…things from the tunnel a couple of years ago, will they be around?" Dudley fidgeted with the hem of his shirt.

Harry thought for a moment.

"Maybe? I haven't heard of seen any confirmation of him being able to control the Dementors, but it wouldn't surprise me," Harry's voice became sympathetic, "I know that wasn't the answer you were hoping to hear."

A beat of silence and Dudley met Harry's gaze.

"What can I do?"

"Dudley," Harry pressed his fingers to his temples, "if this is about proving something to me-"

"Bugger off Harry. You just told me  _ everyone would die _ if your side loses this war. What am I supposed to make of that?"

More silence.

"You could die."

"It's a war."

"You'll be at a disadvantage."

"So will you."

"You might-"

"Harry. I'm eighteen now. I'm older than  _ you _ . I live in this world that could very possibly be destroyed. I deserve to know how I can help."

Harry glared at Dudley. They sat on opposite ends of the room with their eyes were fixed upon each other. Dudley had his head down and his jaw set. He allowed no interpretation that he intended to give up easily.

"You're serious about this, aren't you?"

Interrupting them, Dudley and Harry heard a knock on the door from downstairs. Harry walked down, presumably to open the door, and Dudley followed. When Harry opened the door, Dudley saw two people he didn't recognize. There was a short girl with frizzy brown curls barely contained in a ponytail behind her head and brown skin and what looked like ink on her fingers. Next to her stood a boy with alarming red hair that appeared to be stretched for his long face and towering frame. His pants pulled just past his ankles, and freckles occupied nearly all of his skin.

"Uh, hello." Dudley smiled stiffly.

"Dudley," Harry invited the pair in, "These are my friends from Hogwarts. This is Hermione Granger and Ron Weasley."

Hermione shook Dudley's hand and commented on how nice it was to meet him. Ron narrowed his eyes at Dudley and looked him up and down. Hermione elbowed his ribcage, apparently motivating him to quickly shake Dudley's hand like he was afraid of catching something. Not the best response he could have hoped for, but Dudley thought of how he had allowed his parents to treat Harry when both of them were younger. Harry probably told Ron about all that. Of course, Ron would greet him like that. Did Hermione not know?

Harry invited them for some tea. Of course, he did. They're friends. That's what friends do. Even magical friends. Dudley shuffled behind to brew the tea. He let them do whatever wizards did and asked how many sugars they liked. Harry wanted three sugars, Hermione took hers black, and Ron seemed on a quest to receive a slap from Hermione when he commented he took his tea with pig's blood. Hermione told Dudley to put two sugars in Ron's.

They drank their tea in silence. Well, Harry and Dudley drank their tea in silence. Ron and Hermione were having a full out conversation just by their glares at each other. Maybe they were telepathically communicating? Can wizards do that? Dudley could only imagine the conversation.

_ Wow, this tea is really awful. _

_ I know, right? It's no wonder considering the lowlife that made it. _

_ He seems really stupid. _

_ Oh, I can see into his brain he's an idiot. _

Before Dudley made himself feel even worse, Harry piped up the start of the conversation.

"So, guys, I filled Dudley in on the situation, and he wanted to-"

"Dudley!" Veron stepped into the kitchen to Harry, Hermione, Ron, and Dudley all drinking a cup of tea. Petunia followed closely behind and did an exaggerated gasp.

Dudley gestured to the kettle on the stove, "Tea, Dad?"

"Get over here! We're leaving any second now!"

Harry and Dudley exchanged a knowing look and Dudley put down his cup.

"Hey, Dad? Mom? Let's go to the garden. I need to talk to you."

Vernon narrowed his eyes at Harry and shot glares at Hermione and Ron. Dudley wasn't sure it was a sheer coincidence that Ron returned the gesture to Vernon and Petunia as they walked through the back door and closed it behind them.

Once they were in private, Vernon turned to Dudley and stuck a finger toward his chest.

"Dudley Dursley!" he whisper-yelled, "What are you  _ doing  _ talking to those weirdos? We're about to leave, and you're having tea with a bunch of freaks! We can talk more about this in the car, let's go!" Dudley yanked his wrist back when Vernon made a grab for it.

"No." Dudley tried his hardest to make sure his voice wasn't raised five octaves.

Vernon's eyes were furious, and he growled furiously, "What?"

Dudley's voice shook, and he backed away from his father like prey.

"No, I'm not going with you. I'm going to stay with Harry to help him."

Petunia jumped in front of Dudley, running her fingers through his hair and wailing, "Oh! Diddykins! Don't you know? You have to go with us! It's not safe here anymore! We have to leave now, and you must come with us!"

Dudley slapped her hands away and nudged her beside Vernon.

"Mom, stop." He looked back at Vernon, who was fuming, "I'm not going with you. There's nothing you can do to stop me. I've made up my mind."

Petunia burst into tears.

"Dammit Dudley!" Vernon growled, "Look, you've gone and made your mother upset! What about 'you're coming with us now' don't you understand?"

Dudley almost decided to yield. He almost said _ I'm sorry, Dad I didn't know what I was saying. _

"I'm eighteen now, Dad! You can't drag me around anymore! I'm tired of it! I'm tired of you thinking that if you yell loud enough or grip my shoulder hard enough that I'll just do whatever you want! And I'm tired of it being true! There's a crisis in Harry's world, and I need to step up and do something. I can't just sit by and watch disaster happen!"

Vernon placed a calloused hand on the back on Dudley's neck and squeezed to leave bruises. His voice was barely above a whisper and quieted the world around him.

"We are  _ leaving _ . You are coming  _ with us _ . You are going to leave that little  _ freak  _ to his  _ freaky  _ little friends-!"

"Freaky little friends?" Dudley jerked out of Vernon's grasp. He stomped through the house, ignoring Harry, Ron, and Hermione all the way to the car in front. Dudley opened the trunk and fished for his suitcases and pulled them out one.

"D-Diddy-kins! What are you doing?"

Dudley dry swallowed. He summoned all the courage he had inside of him to face Vernon again. Dudley clenched his quivering fists so hard he felt his nails draw blood.

"Dudley! You're just going to  _ abandon us _ ? Runaway on some  _ fools errand _ and  _ betray your family _ ? Who's  _ fed _ and  _ clothed _ you? Sent you to school? You wouldn't  _ dare _ go to Marge! What other family do you have?!"

Dudley dropped his luggage onto the asphalt and closed the trunk. His heart hammered against his ribs. His blood ran hot through his veins at a mile a minute, and every bone in his body vibrated with pure, unfiltered terror. Nevertheless, he stood grounded.

"I'm going to do something worthwhile for the first time in my life. And talk about betraying family," Dudley turned toward Petunia, hoping his anger showed through over his fear, "You abandoned your parents because they were proud of your sister. You abandoned your sister because she had something that you didn't. You abandoned your sister when she got married; when she had a kid. For God's sake, Mom, you abandoned your sister when she was murdered! You abandoned Harry when you put him in a cupboard. And Mom? You abandoned me."

Petunia's eyes watered.

"You allowed me to bully, torment, and harass my classmates! I was the school bully, and you were okay with that! You and Dad shaped my childhood into one I'll always regret. You  _ encouraged  _ me to torture, my cousin! Harry! All because of some childish envy of your sister!"

Dudley focused his attention back onto Vernon.

"And as far as I'm concerned, he's the only decent family I've got left."

_ SMACK _

Dudley felt a sharp sting on his cheek. He looked up and saw Vernon's fuming face. He stared darkly at Dudley, who almost expected another slap.

"You want to stay? Fine. Be my guest. And once you get a hold of yourself and apologize to your mother and me, then you can come home. Come on, Petunia,  _ we're leaving _ ."

Dudley watched his mother and father get back into the car. He watched his mother tearfully wave goodbye to him as they drove off of Privet Drive for the last time. Dudley stood outside for a moment, a brief, glorious moment, breathing in the fresh air and waiting for nothing in particular. Just being in the knowledge of what he just did. Dudley didn't know whether to cheer or to cry.

When Dudley walked back into the kitchen, he saw Harry Hermione and Ron staring at him, silently and expectantly.

"Sorry about that. Dad never seems to know when he's interrupting. What were you saying, Harry?" This would have been very cool if not for Dudley stubbing his toe and cursing under his breath.

Hermione chuckled, and Dudley picked back up his cup again with an eye roll.

Harry cleared his throat and blinked before continuing, "Anyway, Dudley wanted to be of some help to us."

Ron raised an eyebrow skeptically, "Not to be rude, but how on Earth would you be able to help us?" Hermione glared at Ron as if to criticize his treatment of their host.

"I mean, we barely can keep up. And you just found out about all of this, so what could you do? Not to mention you don't have magic, so getting involved in this war puts a target on your back." 

Dudley straightened his back. He had expected this question and had prepared a response, "Well for starters, you guys rely on magic for a lot of stuff, right? Well from what Harry told me, these guys don't like anything non-magical, so if you have non-magic communication, you might be able to spread information and slip past their precautions. Not to mention, if we add passwords and other non-magic precautions, it would be near impossible for someone on the other side to infiltrate yours." Dudley knew that it probably was more complicated than that, knowing how magic seemed to defy logic, but it was a start.

Before Ron could answer, there was another knock at the front door, Hermione went to go answer it.

"-and so we've got to go bloody quick you understand?" a rough voice said. Dudley turned to Harry and raised his eyebrow to say Who's that? And Harry, being himself, just pointed to his eye like that explained anything, but once Dudley saw the man go into the sitting room, he understood why. The man had thin hair with only one leg and a bright blue fake eye whizzing in his sockets. Dudley would be amazed if he didn't have people taking pictures of him.

Though he was the strangest looking, there were others as well. Four other men had the same hair and freckles as Ron, probably his family; a woman with short pink hair; a taller older man with a long scar on his face and a scholarly presence; and a slender blonde girl who smiled at Dudley. An imposing bald man also stepped through and gave Dudley only the slightest of nods. And while most everyone else looked to be respectable, this short man with a pig's nose and his shirt half unbuttoned swaggered through and seemed to be unable to look at anything for more than half a second.

"That's Mundungus Fletcher," Harry whispered after he caught Dudley staring.

"He seems... interesting."

"I tried to strangle him last time we met."

"Ah."

Harry snorted.

The last person to enter the house was a so hairy and tall and wide that Dudley entertained the idea he might not be entirely human for a second before dismissing it. He probably just had an overactive pituitary gland or whatever it was that caused people to grow to the size of cars. He walked over to  Harry and Dudley.

"'Ey 'Arry! 'Tis nice ter see you!" He gave Harry a bear hug, who grunted and took the well-meaning hit. Once having survived the encounter, he decided to reintroduce Dudley.

"Dudley, this is Hagrid. He's a friend and teacher from school. Hagrid, this is Dudley. You gave him a pig's tail when I turned eleven."

"Oh well, 'ello Dudley." Hagrid shook Dudley's forearm.

Hagrid crouched into the sitting room, and the scarred man and pink-haired girl came up to Harry.

"Oh uh, Dudley, this is Remus Lupin and Tonks." Dudley shook their hands and said hello when he noticed a shiny ring on Tonks' finger. Tonks excitedly presented her hand to Harry before Dudley could say anything.

"Woah!" Harry blanched, "You got married?"

"We're sorry you couldn't be there, Harry, it was very quiet."

Harry beamed, "That's brilliant, congrat-!"

"All right, all right, we'll have time for a cozy catch up later!" The one-eyed man roared, "And who are you?" Both eyes looked directly at Dudley.

"I'  m-uh-I'm Dudley. I'm also, not... a wizard. He looked to Harry for help.

"I asked if he would help us set up non-magic communications that couldn't be tracked," Harry filled them in.

"Whatever, if you're not magic, then you're not a Death Eater. No time to argue now. So you know that Plan A isn't going to work so we have to get you out of here some other way. We can't use the Floo Network, and you've still got the Trace on you as well as your mother's charm. So we are going to use our only means of transport left the Trace can't detect, Thestrals, brooms, and Hagrid's motorbike. Your mother's charm will break when you come of age, or you don't live here. Your aunt and uncle left tonight. Is that right?"

Harry nodded, and Dudley shifted on his feet.

"So we're breaking it now so that You-Know-Who can't come and take you the second you turn seventeen. Now the one thing we've got is You-Know-Who doesn't know we're moving you tonight. We've leaked a fake trail that you're being moved on the thirteenth. That said, we're not going to rely purely on You-Know-Who getting the date wrong. He's probably got some Death Eaters patrolling. A dozen or so houses have protective charms. Safe houses with connections to the Order; places for us to possibly hide you. You'll be going to Tonks' parents. Then you'll use a Portkey to get to the Burrow. Questions?" Dudley was considering asking what the Burrow was and what a Portkey was but decided against it.

"Yeah. Won't it be obvious once fifteen of us are heading to Tonks' parents'?"

"Ah. I forgot to say. There will be seven, now with Dudley," Moody pointed at Dudley, "possibly eight Harry Potters with a companion going to a different safe house." He pulled out a bottle with something that looked like wet mud.

Harry inhaled sharply, "No! No way!"

"Told them he'd take it like this," Hermione whispered to Dudley.

Dudley awkwardly raised his hand, "Not to be an idiot, but what does that do?"

Lupin spoke, "It makes a person adopt the appearance and voice of another. That's what Alastor meant by 'seven Harry Potters.'"

Dudley thought for a moment, "I'm alright with eight Harrys."

"Dudley!" Harry yelled, "If you think I'm letting seven people risk their lives-"

"-because it's the first time for all of us." Ron interrupted.

"But pretending to be me-"

"None of us really fancy it, Harry," said one of the tall redheads.

"Imagine if something went wrong and we were stuck as specky, scrawny gits forever," said the other

Harry frowned.

"I don't know, I could do well to lose some weight," Dudley joked.

Harry glared at Dudley.

"Well, you can't do it if I don't give you some hair," Harry protested.

"Well, that's a shame," said the same redhead, "seems we can't get the hair."

"Especially since it's fourteen of us against one scrawny bloke who can't use magic. Shame."

"We can use force if it comes to that," the one-eyed man growled, "Everyone here is overage, including," he looked at Dudley.

"Yep."

"And they're all willing to take the risk."

Harry looked at Hermione, then Ron, then Dudley, who just mouthed Just give it to him. Harry reluctantly plucked out some hairs and handed them over. Once the hairs made contact, the potion turned a clear goldish fluid that Dudley thought looked a bit like champagne.

"Alright, then Fake Potters. Line up."

Hermione, Ron, the tall redheads, the pretty blonde girl, and Dudley lined up. Harry still glared indignantly at Dudley.

"We're one short," said Lupin. Hagrid lifted Mundungus and dropped him behind Dudley, who thought he smelled positively awful. 

The potion was handed out in small glasses, and everyone drank at the same time. Dudley found the transformation rather unpleasant. He shrunk almost a foot and a half, and his body shed so much mass that Dudley felt slightly self-conscious. He had really never been skinny before and would love to experiment with the feeling. In the meantime, Dudley changed into clothes that fit Harry and put on glasses. Now that he had to see through his eyes, Dudley regretted breaking Harry's glasses even more than he already did.

"Dudley!" the one-eyed man boomed.

Dudley snapped his head up, "Yeah?"

"You go with Arthur and Fred! There can be two fake Harry Potters for you, Fred will just have to ride with a broom."

"I can do that."

* * *

 

Just before they took off, Dudley fished through his newly enchanted bag. Dudley groped until he could feel cold metal. He pulled out the object an stared at it for a second, then checked the magazine. Fully loaded. He stuck it in the back of his pants and (with much instruction) climbed onto the Thestral and took off.

The gun pressed into Dudley's lower back, who prayed it wouldn't have to leave.


End file.
